APD: Crime spree suspect shot
Man barricaded himself in busy Chinese restaurant
A man was shot Sunday by police following a string of crimes that ended with a “dynamic hostage situation” at a Northeast Albuquerque Chinese buffet, according to a department spokesman.
Officer Simon Drobik said the suspect was taken to a hospital; his name and condition have not been released. No one else was injured, and it is not yet clear how many officers fired.
At a news conference Sunday afternoon, Drobik said detectives were still in the process of interviewing dozens of witnesses and he could provide few details about what happened inside Lin’s Grand Buffet, located near San Mateo and Montgomery.
Police were first dispatched around 1 p.m. to a robbery at a business on San Mateo, and, when they arrived, they learned the suspect was running east toward Monroe NE. Soon after, a call came in reporting that someone was “breaking into a house, actively entering the house.” The man fled that area and either shot at a car or attempted to take one, Drobik said.
Finally, the man made it into Lin’s, where around 80 people were dining and working.
Sarahy Franco was working as a cashier and hostess when she heard her manager arguing with a man who she said appeared to be in his late 30s. At one point, the man pulled out a handgun and told her boss to “stop playing games” or “he was going to shoot him,” Franco said.
“He kept telling me that he didn’t want to hurt me, that I needed to get out of there. … He’s like, ‘I really need you to get out,’ ” Franco said. “He kept swinging his gun around so I got scared, so I ran out
through the back.”
She said police were in the parking lot.
“Others were actually trapped inside with this individual,” Drobik told reporters.
The man was taking hostages, he said, and the decision to enter the restaurant was made in order to “protect people inside of that business so nobody would get hurt.”
“The danger was so apparent that our team had to move in,” he said.
Drobik said he could only offer preliminary information as detectives continued to speak with witnesses and process the crime scenes.
“We have the business on San Mateo, the residence he broke into, the car that he shot at in between and Lin’s restaurant,” Drobik said. “So we have multiple detectives working this. Pretty much every detective who’s on call is probably out here right now because we have 80 different people to interview.”